Hannah Soyer
[email protected]
For the upcoming fiscal year, Polk County’s Health Services faces a $7 million gap in its funding, which, if not addressed, will affect the services for up to 1,300 people. My hometown, Des Moines, is located in Polk County, and I receive services from the agency because of my physical disability. Polk County covers a portion of the hours of care I receive (for personal-care assistants to come in and provide me with aid). These sorts of services have allowed me to be more independent and participate more readily in community activities, something that is arguably a right of every U.S. citizen and the grounding for democracy.
The reason Polk County Health Services is facing this funding deficit is because it is still only allowed to levy the same taxation as it was 20 years ago, despite the county’s population increasing rapidly since then. Twenty years ago, Polk County was allowed to collect $14.4 million in taxes. Today, the population has increased to more than 450,000 people and average per capita income has nearly doubled, yet the available funds remain at $14.4 million.
There are many different ways in which services and care for people with disabilities are funded. For example, Medicaid pays for some hours of my care to be covered by an outside nurse or personal-care assistant. The majority of my care is covered by my Home and Community Based Services waiver, a service provided by the Iowa Department of Human Services. According to its website, the waiver “provides service funding and individualized supports to maintain eligible members in their own homes or communities who would otherwise require care in a medical institution.”
RELATED: Time to update sex-ed classes
But I require around-the-clock assistance, and these two programs do not provide me with enough funding to cover that. Luckily, what I receive from Polk County Health Services helps to make up for this. It currently provides me with 20 hours of Supported Community Living per month, which covers such things as going out and participating in activities. The extra 20 hours per month may not seem like a lot, but it definitely makes a difference.
Another significant fact is that many people with disabilities in Iowa who need services provided by the Home and Community Based Services waivers are still on waiting lists to receive them. For example, according the Human Services, there were 2,079 people on the waiting list for the Intellectual Disability Waiver, 2,242 people on the waiting list for the Children’s Mental Health Waiver, and 1,467 people on the waiting list for the Brain Injury Waiver, as of March. This means they are unable to receive a large chunk of funding for care that they need.
To those of you who have the privilege of having all of your basic needs covered and are fully independent, this may seem like a trivial issue. Thirteen hundred people may seem like a small number compared with the number of people living in Polk County.
But I assure you, this is not trivial. As stated earlier, Medicaid and waivers unfortunately only cover so much funding and services, and county services help to make up for this lack. Right now, Polk County is only allowed to levy up to $30.62 per person from property taxes, and in order to cover to $7 million gap, Polk County needs to be able to levy up to $47.28. State legislators are the only ones who can make this change, and it is a change that is much needed.